why there is no static library for math functions?

Question

Is it a standard to have only dynamic libraries mostly without their static version? I am particularly asking about math library. In my fedora 17 (linux machine on Intel 32 processor), I have latest gcc and it has libm-2.15.so and symbolic link file libm.so but there is no libm.a.

Is libm.a missing on my system?

Hatshepsut

This is likely to be very specific to your distrubtion, but my ubuntu 13.04 has libm.a located at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libm.a. Have you looked properly in all the possibile places libs can be stored? – Backhanded

@Troy I did a search at the root for libm.a but no luck. is there any other way to check its presence on my system? I use fedora 17. – Hatshepsut

Did you install the static libraries? yum install glibc-static – Krenek

You did find / -name "libm.a"? I'm not really familiar with fedora so I'm not sure how best to locate what pkg should provide it. I suspect almost all linux distros would be provide libm.a tho. – Backhanded

@Nirk That should be the answer .... :) – Backhanded

@Nirk nicely pointed out. libm.a was missing on my system because glibc-static was not installed. thanks a lot – Hatshepsut

Answer 1

Install the static libraries:

# yum install glibc-static

Krenek

Answer 2

You ask:

Is it a standard to have only dynamic libraries mostly without their static version?

In Fedora, it is indeed standard to only package dynamic libraries. From the packaging guidelines:

Packages including libraries should exclude static libs as far as possible (eg by configuring with --disable-static). Static libraries should only be included in exceptional circumstances. Applications linking against libraries should as far as possible link against shared libraries not static versions.

and later,

In general, packagers are strongly encouraged not to ship static libs unless a compelling reason exists.

... which goes on to say that when such a library is packaged, it should be in a separate subpackage with the suffix -static, as in this case glibc-static.

Electrostatic

Answer 3

generally the .somand .a exist at the same time, but dll comes first.

maybe the static library is missing, you can try yum command as nirk said.

Catalyst